th every dry stick and broken tree-top I could find, and without
motion, and almost without sense, remained beside it several hours.
The great falls of the Yellowstone were roaring within three hundred
yards, and the awful canon yawned almost at my feet; but they had lost
all charm for me. In fact, I regarded them as enemies which had lured
me to destruction, and felt a sullen satisfaction in morbid
indifference.

My old friend and adviser, whose presence I had felt more than seen
the last few days, now forsook me altogether. But I was not alone. By
some process which I was too weak to solve, my arms, legs, and stomach
were transformed into so many traveling companions. Often for hours I
would plod along conversing with these imaginary friends. Each had his
peculiar wants which he expected me to supply. The stomach was
importunate in his demand for a change of diet--complained incessantly
of the roots I fed him, their present effect and more remote
consequences. I would try to silence him with promises, beg of him to
wait a few days, and when this failed of the quiet I desired, I would
seek to intimidate him by declaring, as a sure result of negligence,
our inability to reach home alive. All to no purpose--he tormented me
with his fretful humors through the entire journey. The others would
generally concur with him in these fancied altercations. The legs
implored me for rest, and the arms complained that I gave them too
much to do. Troublesome as they were, it was a pleasure to realize
their presence. I worked for them, too, with right good will, doing
many things for their comfort, which, had I felt alone, would have
remained undone. They appeared to be perfectly helpless of themselves;
would do nothing for me or for each other. I often wondered, while
they ate and slept so much that they did not aid in gathering wood and
kindling fires. As a counterpoise to their own inertia, whenever they
discovered languor in me on necessary occasions, they were not wanting
in words of encouragement and cheer. I recall as I write an instance
where by prompt and timely interposition, the representative of the
stomach saved me from a death of dreadful agony. One day I came to a
small stream issuing from a spring of mild temperature on the
hillside, swarming with minnows. I caught some with my hands and ate
them raw. To my taste they were delicious. But the stomach refused
them, accused me of attempting to poison him, and would not be